1. Field of the Invention
The device of this invention resides in the area of heating coil repair members and more particularly relates to a repair member used to interconnect broken ends of a wire heating coil element.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Structures to join wires exist in the prior art which structures generally consist of tubular repair elements into which wires to be connected are inserted and which tubular repair elements are then crimped near their ends to securely retain the wires therein. An example of such a device is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 2,173,668 to D. F. Smith for an Electric Wire Connecting Device.
While such tubular repair elements requiring wire crimping are known, such tubular repair elements have not been used to repair heating coil elements which reach very high heat levels in operation because, for one reason, such prior art tubular repair elements have not been made of a material that is sufficiently resistant to such high heat. Such prior art tubular repair elements would distort and fail if used to interconnect broken ends of a wire heating coil. It has been appreciated in the past that tubular repair elements can be made of the same material as the wire ends to be joined. Heating coil elements, though, are made of extremely hard, brittle materials such as tungsten and if one were to build prior art tubular repair elements of tungsten or metal of equivalent hardness, they would be too difficult to crimp around the broken ends of the wire.